Cool Steel #97A7B3

About this color

#97A7B3 is a medium-light close to neutral grey. In OKLCH its lightness is 72%, its chroma 0.025. It has too little chroma to lean warm or cool. It is the named color Cool Steel. Black text reads best on it, at 8.49:1.

Colors that go with Cool Steel

Matches found by rotating Cool Steel around the OKLCH hue wheel, each labelled with the closest name in our list.

Color palettes with Cool Steel

Curated color palettes that contain a color within ΔE 0.06 (OKLab) of Cool Steel, closest first.

• Granite Archive
• Abyss and Lunar
• Deep Midnight
• Midnight Watch
• Sailcloth Walk
• Shell and Sailcloth
• Shell Afternoon
• Snowdrift Hush

Similar named colors

The eight named colors closest to Cool Steel, with their ΔE distance.

• Cool Grey #95A3A6 ΔE 0.019
• Bluegrey #85A3B2 ΔE 0.027
• Pewter #96A8A1 ΔE 0.028
• Bluey Grey #89A0B0 ΔE 0.028
• Dark Gray #A9A9A9 ΔE 0.029
• Cool Gray #8D99AE ΔE 0.042
• Greyblue #77A1B5 ΔE 0.045
• Cement #A5A391 ΔE 0.048

More about Cool Steel

• Shades of gray
• What gray means

How to make Cool Steel

A starting recipe from common paint colors, found with a spectral paint model (the color mixer’s paint mode). Real pigments vary, so mix a small test batch and adjust.

• 3 parts gray
• 2 parts white
• 1 part blue

Recipe result: #91A7AF, a difference of ΔE 0.011 from Cool Steel. That is very close: most people will not see the difference.

What colors make gray? | Color mixing chart

Codes for Cool Steel in every format

Contrast

WCAG 2 contrast ratios are the conformance target: AA needs 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text, AAA needs 7:1. APCA Lc values are supplementary guidance from the WCAG 3 drafts.

Shades and tints of Cool Steel

A 50–950 scale built in OKLCH: the hue is held, lightness follows a Tailwind v4-like curve, and every step is kept inside the sRGB gamut. This color sits at step 400.

1. Step 50

   50

   #F4F6F7

   oklch(97.2% 0.003 228.8)

2. Step 100

   100

   #E7EAED

   oklch(93.6% 0.005 247.9)

3. Step 200

   200

   #D4DADE

   oklch(88.5% 0.009 236.6)

4. Step 300

   300

   #B8C2CA

   oklch(80.9% 0.016 241.8)

5. Step 400

   400 (this color)

   #97A7B3

   oklch(72% 0.025 240.2)

6. Step 500

   500

   #798C9B

   oklch(63% 0.032 241.9)

7. Step 600

   600

   #617686

   oklch(55.5% 0.035 241.1)

8. Step 700

   700

   #506372

   oklch(49% 0.033 242.2)

9. Step 800

   800

   #42515C

   oklch(42.6% 0.026 240)

10. Step 900

    900

    #38434C

    oklch(37.7% 0.021 243)

11. Step 950

    950

    #21272C

    oklch(26.9% 0.013 243.3)

Export this scale for Tailwind in the Tailwind colors tool

Cool Steel with color blindness

Simulated with the Machado et al. (2009) model. ΔE is how far the color moves: below about 0.02 you would not notice a change.